Posted By ohioriverrailway on 06/20/2008 7:21 AM
Can be difficult posting links. Wouldn't have been much of a picture to post, just think of a pulley that's 1/4 dia, 5/64 wide. Really too small for my digital to handle. Think I found a fellow in Massachusetts who has a lathe and experience.
How'd you make out in the floods? Looked a bit at the Mason City papers as I'm interested in how Iowa Traction fared. Was no specific mention, so I guess they're OK, altho IC&E is/was out of service on either side of the town.
I have a mill and a lathe and considered volunteering to make a part for someone someday, but of all the items I have made with them I have NEVER been able to make two alike! When you specified that you wanted 6 or 8 I assumed you wanted them to be alike and I knew that meant, "not me". I can chuck up a hunk of metal and turn it to some diameter. Then chuck up another hunk and without changing anything on the lathe at all, turn the piece to a different diameter... such that it is easily detectable to the eye that the two pieces are not the same. Chuck up another piece and get yet another diameter. Frustrating to say the least. I hope you have found someone that can do you some good. If you need only one and don't give a hoot about accuracy, I'm yer man!
As for the floods here in Cedar Rapids... at most I, personally, have been severely inconvenienced.
Had to forego flushing the toilet using city water for a couple of days, no bathing or washing clothes or dishs for less that a week, then was limited to water usage only on odd numbered days (my address is an odd number) and no watering the lawn or washing the car.
Had a couple of short (2 hours or less) power outages and lost internet access several times for a few hours total.
Cedar Rapids is split into East and West parts by the Red Cedar River and both sides have basically the same stores, so even the loss of all the downtown bridges was not all that difficult. Cedar Rapids' streets are so convoluted that you cannot hardly go anywhere without going someplace else first, so it is just ever so slightly easier for me to use the west side stores than the east side where I live, but with the bridges out of service I had to use the stores on my side of the river.
I already had 10-gallons water in jugs in the basement for emergency use in case of storm, etc. I rotate the contents when I do laundry (pour the jugs into the washing machine and refill them from the tap) so the water is relatively fresh. But I quickly discovered that 10-gal. is just not hardly enough to use for toilet flushing for very long. SO... since I have to have two dehumidifiers in my basement running 24/7/365 (floods or not) just to keep my tools from rusting and the walls from turning black with mildew, I redirected their output to gallon jugs and got about 2 to 3 gallons of water per day. That amounts to about 1 flush! I am considering making this setup a bit more convenient and less labor intensive (golly, I have to go down there twice a day to change jugs! Oh the pain!) and continue the process just to save on the water bill! (Besides, I hear that dehumidifier water is good for my steam locomotives!)
The VAST majority of Cedar Rapids (and Marion, Hiawatha, and environs) was affected the same as me... minor inconvenience. BUT... nearly 2000 homes had water up to the second floor and will have to be bulldozed and rebuilt (it is somewhat doubtful at this time that many owners will be able to afford to rebuild). The residents have lost EVERYTHING in the way of material possessions... furnature, appliances, clothing, books, photos, mementos, toys, keepsakes, TVs, radios, computers... EVERYTHING but the clothes on their backs. Most have put on a brave face and are glad to have survived with their lives and their families, but are overwhelmed by the task at hand.
There has been some confusion and difficulty with people being allowed back to their homes and businesses as and after the water has gone down. Some were allowed back in without ID checking and others were held at bay at gun point! Looting is almost nil, with only one person having been arrested for it. There are reports of some unscrupulous "contractors" trying to bilk people, but officials and the media are really working hard at getting out the word to ask for license and permits from anyone purporting to be a repair contractor and to not give them any money "up-front". There is a "grass roots" push to give work only to local contractors, and the city and county officials have endorsed it, but I fear "restraint of trade" lawsuits because of that.
FEMA, the National Guard and other disaster organizations are here in force and are helping but anything of this scale is bound to be fraught with difficulties, regardless of the exercises and practice the groups have performed or the politics of the leaders or past performance in previous disasters.
It will be interesting to see what is done about the loss of the downtown business area and the homes on the west side and southeast areas. Large, old and historic neighborhoods were utterly destroyed and I cannot figure out what can, or should, be done about that. We may end up with a 400 city block "500-year-flood park".
As far as Garden Railroads, I know of none that were affected to any great extent. The one I know about are not in the flooded areas. The big RRs (the real ones) took some pretty big hits. CRANDIC's two bridges collapsed, one is of no consequence as it went nowhere and it was wanted to get rid of it anyway. The other will need replaced so Penford and other businesses can get rail service. I think the U.P. bridge on the north side and the Iowa Northern a way upstreak are okay. The mainline U.P. bridge is also okay but the track that parallels the river on the east side is under major repair. I went to watch trains last night and watched a half dozen MOW cars change crews at Beverly Yards and head east again. Then two trains of HUGE boulders followed after them. The cars had rocks from 6 or 8 inches in diameter to several FEET in diameter, I am sure they are "fill" material for the east side tracks between CR and Bertram. I know they are running mainline trains in the area but the speed limit is like 10MPH from just west of the river to Bertram a few miles east. I don't think that Beverly Yards were damaged too bad by Prairie Creek, but I noticed that the road that crosses at the east end had some of the dirt at the edges washed out right at the tracks, so water must have been over the tracks there and probably over all of Beverly Yards since it is somewhat bowl shaped and the east end is higher than the middle (the west end is a bit higher).